Why I’m Not on Facebook

Periodically, I receive puzzled queries as to why I have not joined the rest of the human race in the mad flock to “connect” on Facebook. There are a number of reasons why I refuse to do this—many of them undoubtedly rich in theological depth and razor-sharp in the penetrating cultural critique they represent—but none as flat-out hilarious as the ones in this piece I came across via Arts & Letters today. Here’s two quotes to whet your appetites:

For the five or six Amish shut-ins who may not yet have heard of this scourge (your tenacious ignorance is to be admired, and I’d immediately friend you if I was into Facebook and you had electricity), Facebook is an online community where colleagues, friends, long-lost acquaintances, friends of friends or long-lost acquaintances, and perfect strangers find and “friend” each other based on their real or perceived affinity. They then have access to each other’s web pages, and consequently to each other’s lives, quirks, photos, jottings, oversharings, and mental disorders, as well as to those of the ever-expanding universe of their friends’ circles, thus increasing the likelihood that you will either embarrass yourself or be embarrassed by someone whose life would never otherwise intersect with yours.

No, the reason to hate Facebook is because of the stultifying mind-numbing inanity of it all, the sheer boredom. If Facebook helps put together streakers with voyeurs, the streakers, for the most part, after shedding their trench coats, seem to be running around not with taut and tanned hard-bodies, but in stained granny panties with dark socks. They have a reality-show star’s unquenchable thirst for broadcasting all the details of their lives, no matter how unexceptional those details are. They do so in the steady, Chinese-water-torture drip of status updates. The very fact that they are on the air (or rather, on Facebook) has convinced them that every facet of their life must be inherently interesting enough to alert everyone to its importance.

And this is the partial (much funnier) rationale behind why I refuse to join Facebook—that, and the fact that I already feed my narcissism through blogging and I cannot risk upsetting the delicate balance between guilt and misguided myopia that I work so hard to maintain. If you want to be further de-converted from Facebook or if you simply would like more hilarious justification for your resistance (including adding the delightful epithet “facetard” to your lexicon), read the rest of the article. A delightful way to enter a new week.